Are we Ready for AI Recruitment?

Finding the right job candidate can be a costly and lengthy endeavor, especially for large corporations that post hundreds of jobs online. The large number of applicants these jobs attract mean that there’s a lot of sifting that must be done to find the perfect match. This is why businesses often hire recruiters to pre-screen...

Finding the right job candidate can be a costly and lengthy endeavor, especially for large corporations that post hundreds of jobs online. The large number of applicants these jobs attract mean that there’s a lot of sifting that must be done to find the perfect match. This is why businesses often hire recruiters to pre-screen candidates beforehand and connect the company with applicants who are most likely to succeed.

Advancements in AI recruitment technology have pushed this trend even further. Hiretual, a digital recruiter tool, claims that it helps businesses “source talent up to 10x faster” by sifting through resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and other online sources like AngelList and Reddit. Through machine-learning and behavioral pattern recognition Hiretual identifies the strongest candidates for the position and reduces a huge portion of task-based labour.

Though many companies have adopted this technology in their hiring processes, the AI services are not competent enough to hire candidates on their own. While they can provide basic-level efficiencies, employers must be conscious of algorithmic tendencies to reinstate biases and favour key buzzwords.

Amazon had been working on their own AI recruitment program since 2014 that they recently put to rest after discovering the AI’s preference for hiring men. The AI worked by observing patterns from resumes that had been submitted to the company over the last 10 years. As the majority of job applicants were male, the AI thought that men were the favourable candidates and downgraded resumes with any references to the word “women” such as “women’s board” or “women’s school”.

CareerBuilder speculates that AI services will become a regular part of the hiring process within the next five years. If this is the case, parties need to work quickly to make sure these services provide equitable opportunities that are beneficial to all applicants. While AI recruitment services offer tempting efficiencies, these programs offer no service at all until they promote equitable opportunities for all who use them.

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